


At the Time

by Nanyoky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bombing, Canon Compliant, Cemetery, Codependency, Death, Gen, Homelessness, Jewish Character, Loss of Parent(s), Original Character(s), Orphans, Religious Conflict, Wakes & Funerals, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 01:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10888611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanyoky/pseuds/Nanyoky
Summary: Prompt: The twins at their parents funeral. The twins going to the graves on the anniversary for years, or before big life changes. The twins going one last time before they go to the castle.





	At the Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/gifts).



> I Feed on Sadness.  
> Thank you EssayofThoughts for the prompt!  
> This fic is mcu canon compliant and therefore the parents mentioned are OCs (no dadneto here, sorry if that's what you're here for). It is also compliant with my long fic "I" Not "We." I may put a link in my next chapter there, or include sections in that fic as well.  
> [The mix I wrote to.](https://8tracks.com/nellmakinjams/at-the-time)

"They have to be together!"

It was the first thing she heard when she woke up. The first thing since the rescue teams found them and moved the rubble and both of them had fainted from exhaustion and shock.

"Pietro?"

She said it half because she knew the voice was his and half because it was her first conscious thought on waking. He was at her side in an instant, helping her sit up. She batted his hands away, trying to see who he had been talking to. She felt floating and dizzy from the pain medication they were likely pumping into her veins.

The woman wore a uniform, but carried no weapons. Not a soldier.

"You two need time to heal. You shouldn't have to worry about -"

"Then tell them!" a pair of nurses had rushed over and one was gently pulling his arm to bring him back to the bed next to Wanda’s. The other was trying to take her pulse, but she snatched her arm away. "Tell them they have to be together!"

She didn't need to ask what the subject of his panic was. The instant she was conscious she shared it. A deep, tangible fear creeping up her spine like the spiders that nested in the woods.

"Please be quiet, other patients are trying to -"

"Then do as he says!" Her voice cracked and peaked as she joined in shouting at the woman. "Our parents! Luka and Matilda Maximoff! You must bury them together!"

~

With all the horror and disorganization, it was a wonder all the bodies weren't just dumped in a mass grave. Later, they would learn words like infrastructure and first responders. But at the time, it almost seemed right that the whole city was thrown into as much chaos as their own lives. At last they were allowed to leave the hospital wing that housed the living and go to the never-ending halls where the dead were laid out for loved ones to claim. Priests, rabbis and imams were gathered, identifying who they could and speaking to families about arrangements. Not knowing any of them personally, Wanda dragged Pietro towards the first available rabbi.

"Please, will you help us find-"

"You children should not be here-" later, they would realize his tone was one of concern, not anger, but at the time, they shrugged his hands off their shoulders and stuck out their chins. "This is not a place for-"

"Our parents are in there-" Pietro gestured at the hall with its endless drawers and metal tables. "You have to let us-"

"Did you know Luka Maximoff?" Wanda held the man's gaze, deciding it would not hurt to ask.

He blinked, then gave a heavy sigh. "I had hoped, that it was not the boy I remembered when I saw him..."

"He's here, then?" Pietro lunged to grab the man's hand. "Where - Please take us -"

He wouldn't, Wanda could tell that already. So, she offered a compromise.

"We don't have to see him if you will just make sure he is buried with our mother."

He hesitated. That was the trouble with going to religious leaders for help. They had their rules. Rules about who people were and who they should marry and where they should be put after they died.

"We don't care if he is in the proper cemetery- he wouldn't care! He loved her m-"

Wanda stood on Pietro’s foot, knowing what he was about to say might lose their case. That he had loved her more than he'd loved God. That if someone had asked him to choose, he would not have hesitated. _"The world or my wife? Mattie, Mattie. Mattie every time."_

"Please, Rabbi." She made her eyes wide the way their mother always said could make anyone give her anything she wanted. "Will you make sure they are put together? Our father believed in God, but doesn't God believe in love?"

The old man sighed and put a gentle hand on her head. He gave a brief nod.

"Wait here."

"Do you know what she looks like?" Wanda had to hold Pietro back as the man stepped down the aisles of the dead and mourning. "Her hair is black but she puts red in it. And- and she has marks on her cheeks, from pox when she was small. She thinks they make her ugly, but no one else notices! She-"

He choked and Wanda pulled him to her to keep him from shouting anything else. No one had noticed. There was plenty of other shouting and wailing. But she knew he would hate for all these strangers to see him cry, so she pulled him in a corner to wait.

~

It was a week of funerals. Arrangements and rituals were spartan at best. The leaders from each house of worship worked together to distribute the load. Families waited by grave plots until the next available holy man of the dead's faith made their way to them. Wanda and Pietro waited alone. There were care workers in the cemetery, but thankfully they kept their distance.

"Do you think they know?" Pietro was gripping her hand tight enough to hurt. "Auntie and grandfather and all of them?"

"I don't know," she said because she didn't want to say that she thought they might be the last of their family alive.

"What is taking so-"

"Many people died, Pietro. We have to wait our turn!"

He blinked at her, and in one terrible moment, they were both laughing. Wait their turn. Like for the swings in the playground. Some kind of game. And after they were finished playing, they could go home.

Luckily their laughter had turned to huge, ugly sobs by the time the rabbi that had helped them reached the plot. They tried to cry quietly while he said his words. Wanda couldn't bear the hurt of looking at the flimsy wooden marker, so she focused on the grass behind it instead.

"We'll replace it," Pietro promised once they were alone again. "We'll get a big stone one. And bring flowers whenever we can. Dark roses, like he brought her on her birthday."

Wanda said nothing. Pietro always needed to take action. To have purpose. But she was too practical. The thought of flowers felt empty. Empty when her mind was filled with food and clothes and medicine if they got sick and beds and blankets out of the winter snow.

They stayed until the sun started to set and the shadow of the synagogue reached for them across the yard. Wanda had locked her knees and was starting to feel faint.

"Are you -"

She shifted her weight and the blood rushed back into place. Wanda let out a whimper and grabbed his arm to stay upright. He helped her to a bench near the path.

"What's wr-"

"I'm fine."

But she didn't let go of his hand. Not even after the care worker came to take them away.

~

It was the first place they went when they ran from the care center. They didn't have a plan beyond the grave, but they were in silent agreement that they needed to go there at any cost.

"Is anyone here?" Pietro hissed as he helped her over the fence. "Is there a guard?"

"How am I supposed to know?" She snapped, grabbing his wrist and pulling him along to the center of the field of graves.

They almost tripped over the marker in the dark. It was nearly June, but nights were cool and they huddled together on the ground.

"Wanda... where are we going to go?"

She leaned into his shoulder, eyes fixed on the sad little marker.

"I don't know."

Later, they learned the guard's schedule, and to come at different times so the police or care workers wouldn't learn their patterns. But at the time, they thought they might be able to come there to sleep every night.

~

They saved money. Small bills from sympathetic elderly couples and larger ones from wallets they learned to lift. But there was always some new emergency that required the meager savings. Pietro's twisted ankle when they had jumped a fence to avoid the grocer chasing after them for taking their dinner. The hotel room and cough medicine when Wanda got sick in the dead of winter. They had replaced the stake marker with a rock from the hills, but the paint they had used wore off every time it rained. They freshened it every year on the anniversary, but it was starting to feel like a pointless ritual by the time they were 17.

"What are you doing?"

They looked up at the man hobbling across the yard towards them. It took them a moment to recognize him.

"Oh -" he slowed as he saw their faces. "I'm sorry. I did not recognize you. There have been vandals recently."

They said nothing but stood up. Pietro was taller than the rabbi now and stared down his nose at him. The old man tried to offer them both a smile.

"Why don't you come inside? You know you are always welcome -"

"Let's go, Pietro." She hugged his arm to her side. "We have somewhere to be."

They didn't. They had been lying low since the police retaliation after the last protest.

"Where do the two of you sleep? It is far too cold and you look hungry."

"Do you hear something?" He could make his voice sound cold and ugly when he disliked someone enough and the rabbi’s kindly expression fell.

Wanda pulled him towards the gate.

"No. Maybe _God_ is finally talking to you."

~

The man was a soldier, but not one of the occupying forces. A SHIELD patch was stitched to his sleeve, but he told them the castle in the hills was only a distant satellite of the organization. They were still skeptical. Especially of anyone offering power to two homeless street thieves. But he said thus particular branch of the operation was less taken with the band of heroes Stark belonged to than their American counter parts.

So they talked it over for weeks. Fought over it. And finally agreed. They were children no longer. At the time, any action was preferable to the endless, unchanging life they had made for themselves. They would know better, not much later.

"We were five." Pietro's voice was tight as he stared at the date painted on the rock and she gripped his arm harder. "We are the same age Anya was when we were five. How-"

"They deserved a century at least." She cut off his train of thought. They didn't need wonder at how they had aged. They needed anger for what they were about to do. "It was their right. He took it from them. So we will take what years he has left."

He squeezed her hand tighter and they turned away, at the time thinking they would be back soon enough.


End file.
